Michael Lonsdale, former Bond villain and 'The Day of the Jackal' star, dies at 89

Michael Lonsdale, the actor who played an iconic villain in the 1979 James Bond movie “Moonraker” and starred in 1973’s “The Day of the Jackal,” has died, according to the AFP via Lonsdale’s agent. The British-French actor was 89 at the time of his passing.

In “Moonraker,” Lonsdale had the role of bad guy Hugo Drax - an industrialist with plans to poison all of humanity and then repopulate Earth from his space station.

For “Day of the Jackal,” the British-French political thriller directed by Fred Zinnemann, Lonsdale played Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel, starring opposite Edward Fox as “the Jackal.”

Lonsdale is also remembered for his role as the ill-fated René Morane in François Truffaut's “The Bride Wore Black” (1968), the Abbot in “The Name of the Rose” (1986), and French Nazi sympathizer Dupont D'Ivry in “The Remains of the Day” (1993).

At: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/michael-lonsdale-former-bond-villain-151516286.html

British-French actor Michael Lonsdale, 1931-2020, with Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose.

'FinCEN' reports say big banks moved dirty money

Source: Yahoo! News

Hong Kong shares of HSBC fell to their worst level since 1995 on Monday (September 21) after reports that it and other financial institutions had allegedly moved large sums of illicit money over two decades.

They revolve around documents leaked to Buzzfeed and shared with a global network of invetigative journalists.

Buzzfeed and other news outlets say it involves moving money for the likes of terrorists, drug kingpins and corrupt leaders.

The leak is reportedly made up of over 2,100 suspicious activity reports filed by banks and other financial firms with the U.S Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen.

The so-called Fincen Files allegedly show more than $2 trillion dollars worth of transactions from 1999 to 2017, all of it flagged as suspicious by the banks' own compliance departments.

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/fincen-reports-big-banks-moved-063448514.html

HSBC and Barclays headquarters in Canary Wharf, London.

The two banks were among the top firms named in the ICIJ's FinCEN files as those involved in large-scale money laundering: https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/download-fincen-files-transaction-data/

Leaked U.S. government files suggest Deutsche Bank tops list of suspicious transactions

Source: CNBC

Germany’s largest lender Deutsche Bank appears to have facilitated more than half of the leaked $2 trillion of suspicious transactions that were flagged to the U.S. government over nearly two decades, reported German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).

Those documents showed that between 1999 and 2017, $1.3 trillion of $2 trillion in leaked transactions that were flagged as suspicious passed through Deutsche Bank, according to the DW report.

The leaked documents contained suspicious activity reports that banks and other financial institutions filed with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.



Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/21/leaked-fincen-files-show-deutsche-bank-tops-list-of-suspicious-transactions.html

Deutsche Bank's Frankfurt headquarters.

The recent FinCEN revelations - first published by the ICIJ (best known for the 2016 panama Papers) - show that Deutsche Bank accounts for more than half the $2 trillion of suspicious transactions flagged to the U.S. government over nearly two decades.

The FinCEN Files: Money laundering is a dirty, even deadly business; Miami plays a huge role

New details about how money that powered the fentanyl drug ring and more than $2 trillion in other suspect funds flowing around the globe are contained in a cache of secret financial records obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

ICIJ - best known for the 2016 Panama Papers - assembled a global team of news organizations to analyze the documents, including, in the United States, the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald and their parent, McClatchy.

The records, known as Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, provide a worldwide tour of crime, corruption and inequality, with crucial roles played by politicians, oligarchs and swindlers, as well as the bankers who serve them all.

The SARs, which are collected and analyzed by an agency called the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, show how the failure of banks and other financial institutions to thwart the flow of illicit money promotes criminality and suffering on a grand scale.

At: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article245744245.html

John Turner: Former Canadian prime minister dies at 91

Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, who was in office for just 79 days and led his Liberal Party to a huge defeat in 1984, has died aged 91.

A lawyer by training, he served as justice and then finance minister from 1968-1975. He resigned after arguments with party leader Pierre Trudeau.

As justice minister, he defended reforms to Canada's Criminal Code that paved the way for LGBTQ rights and legal abortions. But in the finance ministry he faced economic pressures due to the global oil crisis.

Turner resumed his legal work and in 1984 won the party leadership. His 79-day tenure as prime minister is the second shortest in the country's history.

The Conservatives, under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, swept to power with 211 seats.

Despite the result, Turner hung onto his post. In the 1988 election, Turner was a strong opponent of a proposed free trade agreement with the US but lost again to Mr Mulroney, but not as badly.

He resigned as a Liberal leader in 1990.

At: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54220721

Former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, 1929-2020.

Virginia Supreme Court blocks Kanye West from ballot

Source: Fox News

The Virginia Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Kanye West Thursday, blocking the rapper from appearing on the state’s general election ballot in November.

West appealed to the Supreme Court following a ruling by state Attorney General Mark Herring, who found that West’s campaign had obtained fraudulent signatures in an attempt to get on the ballot.

“Having considered the record and arguments presented, we find it is not ‘appropriate under the circumstances of th[is] case’ to alter the temporary injunction,” the court’s decision concludes.

Herring took to Twitter to applaud the ruling.

“This case could have thrown the election into complete chaos and disenfranchised thousands of Virginians -- this ruling will help ensure every single vote is counted this fall,” he said.

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-supreme-court-blocks-kanye-west-from-ballot

No rest for West

Trangender workers say Argentina jobs quota a step towards acceptance

A decree by Argentine President Alberto Fernández published last week in the official Gazette requires that 1.0% of all public sector jobs be set aside for transgender people.

The progress "has come at a price," Thomas Casavieja, who just started a new job in a state-owned Buenos Aires bank, said as he reflected on the belated government efforts to bring LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people into the formal employment fold.

But it's a landmark moment for all that, he believes.

"More than just the significance of working, these are real concrete things, like being able to have a pension, having access to health insurance, and to have colleagues that care about you."

Argentina has pioneered minority rights in Latin America, recognizing same-sex marriage in 2010, and passing gender identity laws in 2012.

However, activists say discrimination against the LGBT+ community in the South American country still persists.

At: https://news.yahoo.com/trangender-workers-argentina-jobs-quota-053819870.html

Bank officer Thomas Casavieja at his new job in the state-owned Argentine National Bank, the nation's largest.

A decree signed by President Alberto Fernández establishes a hiring quota for transgender people like himself in Argentina's public sector.

Eating Nano: Nanotechnology is thriving along entire food chain

Processed Foods and Food Packaging Already Contain Nanoparticles - Some of Which Could Be Harmful to Our Health

Our food supply is not nearly as safety-tested as we would like to believe. True, things are not as dire as they were in the early 20th century when Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed the filth of the meatpacking industry, leading to reforms that included the founding of an agency that would become the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

But there are still unsettling gaps in what we know about the food and food packaging that is already sitting on supermarket shelves.

Unbeknownst to just about everyone, nanoparticles made a quiet entrance into the nation's food supply at least a decade ago.

Nanoparticles are materials that are microscopic - significantly smaller than a red blood cell; and tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair. These particles can help deliver nutrients, ensure longer freshness of food, act as thickening agents or enhance taste or flavor.

The problem is, scientists are still determining the health and environmental impact of these tiny particles, even as industry is forging ahead.

At: https://www.sott.net/article/254698-Eating-Nano-Nanotechnology-is-thriving-along-entire-food-chain

A partial list of popular processed snacks containing nanotitanium.

"FDA does not maintain a list of food products that contain nanomaterials," agency spokesperson Sebastian Cianci recently admitted, "so we cannot reliably answer this question."

Toots Hibbert, reggae icon who named the genre, dead at 77

The man who gave reggae its name and helped make it an international movement, Toots Hibbert, born Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert, has died at age 77.

Hibbert, one of the genre's founders and most beloved stars, was known for classics including “Pressure Drop,” “Monkey Man” and "Funky Kingston." He claimed to have named reggae on his song "Do The Reggay," which was released in 1968, according to the BBC.

The frontman of Toots & the Maytals, whose nickname "Toots" came from childhood, had been in a medically-induced coma at a hospital in Kingston since earlier this month.

He was admitted in intensive care after complaints of having breathing difficulties according to his publicist. It was revealed in local media that the singer was awaiting results from a COVID-19 test after showing symptoms.

At: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/09/12/toots-hibbert-one-reggaes-founders-has-died-77/5778258002/

Toots Hibbert, 1942-2020

Pleasures of food and sex 'simply divine,' says Pope Francis

he pleasures of a well-cooked meal or loving sexual intercourse are "divine" and have unjustly fallen victim to "overzealousness" on the part of the Church in the past, Pope Francis says in a book of interviews published Wednesday.

"Pleasure arrives directly from God, it is neither Catholic, nor Christian, nor anything else, it is simply divine," Francis told Italian writer and gourmet Carlo Petrini.

"The Church has condemned inhuman, brutish, vulgar pleasure; but has on the other hand always accepted human, simple, moral pleasure," he added.

The Argentine-born Francis, 83, said that there was no place for an "overzealous morality" that denies pleasure, something he admitted existed in the Church in the past but insisted is "a wrong interpretation of the Christian message."

At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/pleasures-of-food-and-sex-simply-divine-says-pope-francis.phtml

Pope Francis shares a meal in Bologna, Italy, earlier this year.

"The pleasure of eating is there to keep you healthy by eating, just like sexual pleasure is there to make love more beautiful and guarantee the perpetuation of the species," the pope said.